Daddy's Girl Read online

  Meera couldn’t help but giggle at his take-down of the first family, while thinking, Of course you do, you old fraud. And that’s why you have ruthlessly fucked everyone who has come in your way. And, that’s why they don’t trust you an inch.

  To distract Rama Kaushik further, Meera said, ‘Thakurji has sold you a pup, the great superstar cricketer you nominated to the Rajya Sabha. And there seems to be more than meets the eye. I am doing a story on it.’

  Rama Kaushik hated Thakurji, whom he considered an upstart, constantly asking for favours to further his wheeling-dealing, flaunting his proximity to the first family and given to what he termed, ‘hearty north Indian vulgarity’.

  As Rama Kaushik’s eyes lit up at the thought of the discomfiture of his foe, Meera stood up and cooed, ‘Take care. And you need to give me lunch soon.’ She was mindful of the fact that Rama Kaushik, ever the lawyer, doled out his time in tiny, productive parcels.

  Her mind was in turmoil as she drove away, ‘What did the old bandicoot want? Why the mention of Papa? Had Bhagwan gone and leaked information to him?’

  Meera did not know and was desperate for answers. In a daze it came to her that people pretty much told you what they were up to—it’s just that you refused to believe them.

  In another part of town, Arjun Nalwa tipped his head back on a chair in a luxury five-star hotel and felt the sting of the dye as the stylist, bending down, dexterously applied colour on his head. Arjun had his eyes closed, while his mind went over the instructions he had given Anju. He felt a twinge of apprehension, because after meeting him once, Client No.1 had not given him time again. He made a mental note of getting Sejal, his plain new assistant, to call her again.

  His mind travelled over its familiar path like a tongue exploring a painful, well-known cavity—knowing the tooth would ache more after exploration, yet powerless to stop.

  When would all this be over? How much more would those bloody leeches, the three lawyers he had hired, bleed him? How would he keep funding it? Should he get a well-chosen, prominent, sympathy piece in the media to keep the vulture lawyers, who feasted on publicity, eager for more? Or would it be counter-productive with his wife’s ever increasing anxious tics?

  His mind couldn’t be disciplined. It relentlessly kept running over the well-worn track. I am playing with a double-edged sword, the media is such a slut, but comes back to bite you in the ass so fast. Look at that young bitch, Meera.

  Arjun had always taken great pride in his iron calmness, hard won after his blood-curdling rages. He had always considered it the true measure of a man. God knows it had allowed him to survive his tempestuous marriage. But after Ambika . . . He thought back and an awful blackness started descending upon him. He bolted up to beat the sadness as the dye stung, and beckoned to the barber. While, the man massaged his head, Arjun told himself, ‘It will be all right. I just won’t think about it now, but it was like quicksand, flashes of that night, the sickening sight of that man over Ambika.’

  He still had a vivid recollection of Babloo’s dirty soles, grimy and cracked. And Ambika’s eyes, frightened, yes, but with a strange look of triumph in them and then the slow dulling, the fade-out . . . The fact that the sharp eyes, just like his own, would never meet and challenge his ever again.

  Tonelessly, he told the barber, ‘I want a pedicure and make sure I can see my face reflect in my soles.’

  The barber, who had glimpsed what lay beneath Mr Nalwa’s mask, nodded. He was a little intimidated by his client. He had heard all the gossip, the news, but that hadn’t created the fear in him. It had always been present like the smell of the Armani cologne the lawyer sprayed on mechanically every two hours. The coldness of his voice, the lack of even acknowledgement of his daughter’s death and the stoicism. The barber vaguely felt that it just wasn’t right and the consensus in the salon gossip was that he had always been like this, even before the horrible tragedy. The fact that he came in for his usual treatments, five days after the death of his daughter, before going to the police station, had not surprised the staff who had known him for years. It is obviously a habit, thought the young man, as he went about his business.

  ‘You’ve left it on for too long and now my skin is burning. You know it’s sensitive,’ said Arjun accusingly.

  ‘Sorry, sir, let me just wash it!’ said the barber gently.

  As Arjun’s hair was being rinsed and the dye shampooed off, he thought fleetingly of the first time he had washed Ambika’s hair when she was a little baby. He remembered of how incredibly soft and tiny her head was. It had been so long ago and yet he could almost feel the wetness of the soap on his palms, the sweetness of her face as she gurgled to him. And then all this to happen, for them to lose her in this incredibly sad way . . . Inadvertently, two tears trickled down his face and mingled with the water. The barber thought his eyes were stinging and became extra gentle in his treatment.

  Then he pulled himself together. He was also a worried man. He called Sejal and told her to get him an appointment with Client No.1 again. Sejal was still unfamiliar with Arjun’s ways with his staff and said, ‘Sir, I have tried several times. They always say they will get back, but they have not called yet.’

  Arjun, who was back to his caustic self, said, ‘Oh really? This is your level of sincerity and dedication. “They will get back and have not called.”’ He mimicked her with his cold voice. Then he said sharply, ‘If you want to work for me, make the appointment happen and, from now on, start noting down the time you call them and who you speak to for all my appointments.’ He hung up the phone.

  ‘Employees today, no fucking work ethic, no effort.’ And then he laughed uncontrollably. The salon was empty, and the laughter rang and pealed in the closed space. As the stylist looked at him with frightened eyes, Arjun wondered fleetingly if he was losing his mind.

  His phone beeped; it was one of the vulture lawyers—the one whose height made him the butt of all dwarf jokes in the cruel court corridors of Delhi. Fixit Vadhera, on the fringe of politics, desperate for publicity, armed with his reputation of fixing the lower courts, was ostensibly handling the case pro bono. Arjun had seen right through him, with his huge watch-face and the lower-end Vuitton Daimler-checked Rexine case and shoes with built-in elevators, but was always extra attentive to him.

  ‘Vakil sahib, your excellency!’ Vadhera bellowed like a true Punjabi and then lowered his voice to what he thought was a solicitous whisper. ‘Just heard, it’s not good news. Our person in law enforcement seems to have been ineffective. I think we should file for anticipatory bail outside Delhi.’

  Arjun grimaced and said in a clipped voice, ‘But I thought you had it covered. You said it would never come to this.’

  The whisper continued, sounding unconcerned, ‘I know, sir, but you need to pay me more for better protection.’

  Arjun winced. Was the bastard doing his job or was he just trying to extract more? Was it just a ruse? Could he take the risk?

  ‘Do we really need to discuss all this on the phone?’ he enquired softly.

  ‘Well I can only find time for you around 11. I have clients, preparations, conferences, you know. Insurance toh lena padta hai na, your excellency. Come to my suite then and we will talk,’ he sang out happily.

  Paying at the counter, Arjun bitterly noted the stylist hovering around, greedy for his tip, like all these other vultures who were circling him. Well, one of them was going to be disappointed today, he thought as he marched out briskly, without tipping him.

  Not wanting to think about what the fixer had said, Arjun thought about this daily wear-and-tear, ordinary irritations and the small defeats. They make us crave some respite from the relentless drip of the mundane. I have only got relief from this in exciting, forbidden sex. Otherwise this eat, sleep, defecate, regimented life would institutionalize me.

  He felt a special power seep into him as he revved up his car’s engine.

  13

  Cuckoo was screaming into the phone. ‘Wh
ich lawyer will give you time at 11 in the night, hain? It must be that bitch Anju or have you got a new one that I don’t know about?’

  ‘Calm down,’ her husband responded tonelessly. ‘It’s not good news. If you wish to, you can join the meeting at the Taj at 11 p.m. The bastard will bill me for the suite anyway. It might make you understand the reality then.’

  ‘I know what the reality is. Remember?’ she said in a cold, still voice.

  For a moment there was complete silence. Then a sigh.

  ‘I will meet you in the lobby,’ she said.

  If Arjun was shaken by this exchange, he didn’t show it for soon he was on another call. A strange smile was playing on his face when he called his other lawyer, Shivi Prasad, and asked her for a meeting her right away.

  This one he would do alone.

  This was the only lawyer he considered slightly competent; a young woman, very aggressive, who wanted to use the Nalwa case to pole-vault to the top of the heap. Arjun recognized a kindred spirit in her.

  To get into the inner ring of top lawyers in Delhi, she was prepared to murder her conscience on an hourly basis and Arjun approved of this spirit in the service of his case.

  He entered her tiny, dingy, file-infested chambers in the Supreme Court in which she had a time share of only two hours, but was a source of inordinate pride to her. Arjun had spent fifteen years of his life in the chambers, but they offended his fastidious nature. Stepping into her chamber, his first thought was, What a disgusting building! And these people have the same kind of pride as those idiots in IIT. He decided to be grateful about his own consulting facilities and the fact that he didn’t have to go there very often.

  Looking at her admiringly and letting none of his distaste surface, Arjun asked in a collegial tone, ‘Do you think anticipatory bail is required?’

  He was hoping to hear her dismiss her colleagues in the feral, contemptuous tone she always used with them.

  However, she disconcerted him by simply saying, ‘Yes.’

  The mask slipped a bit and Arjun said sharply, ‘Why? I had no idea. You never said anything . . . I have mentally rescued myself from the matter.’

  She said in a conciliatory tone, ‘It’s only an anticipatory measure of caution. Most accused can’t afford a counsel. It’s different for the rich.’

  ‘I am not that rich,’ said Arjun, always in denial of his billionaire father-in-law’s legendary wealth. ‘I am just a professional lawyer, and I thought you had the case and the cops under control. If I apply for bail, won’t it look bad to the fucking media and the salivating public?’

  ‘There is that aspect, of course, but I don’t think we have a choice right now. We will need to go to either Allahabad or Lucknow. It may not be a wise idea to apply for it in Delhi. You have appeared before most of these judges as a lawyer.’

  Arjun felt slightly dizzy as if, for the first time, he was ceding control of the events. ‘So you think the cops will arrest me?’ he asked bluntly. ‘A grieving father who has lost his daughter . . . his only child?’

  She looked at him, a flash of concern in her eyes, and then she was businesslike again. ‘Yes, and you should also apply for bail for Mrs Nalwa as well.’

  At 11 p.m., Cuckoo Nalwa, fully made up and dressed in a sombre, black chiffon sari met her husband in the lobby of the Taj hotel.

  ‘Have you got the cash?’ he asked.

  She pointed to her tan Birkin bag as they both entered the elevator. Cuckoo, looking at her reflection from every angle in the elevator mirrors, thought, I have a closet full of the most expensive clothes and no place to wear them. At least Ambika could have used them.

  Her eyes shone with tears but she knew better than to disturb her husband. There were things that she could’ve shared, that she should’ve shared with him. About them as parents. She should have been able to tell him now that Ambika was gone, she could think of nothing else and no one else. Things that had seemed so important to her when her daughter was alive, were now useless. That she felt restless and angry all the time. But she couldn’t tell him anything. She sighed sadly.

  The oily dwarf lawyer had already settled down and was drinking from a bottle he had brought from home, with his flunky.

  Arjun, who missed nothing, thought, And I will be billed for those drinks at hotel prices along with the suite. Looks like it’s my turn to be at the receiving end.

  Silently handing over the wads of money that Cuckoo took out her bag, Arjun asked, ‘What went wrong?’

  ‘Arey, sirji, will you have a drink? Aur aap, madam?’ bellowed Mr Fixit, with his usual boisterousness.

  ‘Whisky, small, for both of us,’ said Arjun impatiently.

  ‘Make it!’ said Fixit to his assistant hovering behind him.

  Arjun repeated his question again. ‘So, what went wrong?’

  ‘Arey, sir, you know how it is. It is such a high-profile case, so their demands become huge. Bada mooh kholte hai. People get scared, sir.’

  Glaring at him, Arjun said, ‘No. I do not know how it is. How will I? You told me you would fix the cops, the whole case and took lakhs from me. Now, are you trying to extract more money from me? Is that your game?’

  Fixit theatrically lost his cool and, raising the pitch of his voice a notch, he said, ‘You are insulting me. Hamara ek hi dhanda hai, we are in the same profession. I have tried to help you, but you have committed a crime. Aur boss, ab rate has gone up. If you don’t want to go to jail, apply for bail. And don’t try bargaining for your freedom. How many things can I fix?’

  ‘Arey, bhaisahib,’ said Cuckoo, trying to placate him. ‘My husband is stressed. Please help us. What has happened? This is your field; you need to tell us what to do.’

  ‘Madam, I’m doing that only. This is not a time to worry about money. Your husband is trying to do chindi chori.’ He complained some more about Arjun being stingy. ‘There is a cop called Singh. He has stirred up trouble. There is another cop, a complete bastard called Apoorva Kumar Sinha, who is using our medical reports to target the commissioner. We should try various courts. Play for time. Things will go our way once these bastards are moved out, transferred. And the media will move on to some new sensation and then we can manage things.’

  Cuckoo, who seemed to have taken charge of the meeting, said, ‘Fine, that seems like a good enough strategy for the moment. But, tell me, won’t we look guilty to the media? Every day they write some new nonsense about us. We are seriously tired of it.’

  ‘Madam, we need to take that risk; otherwise, it might be jail for a couple of days or perhaps even a few months,’ said Fixit bluntly.

  She grimaced and then visibly steeled herself, saying, ‘No, that is not acceptable. What we are facing is punishment enough.’

  Having had enough, Arjun interrupted, ‘Please explain to her that you also want her to apply for anticipatory bail.’

  ‘Yes, madam. Just to make sure there is no trouble.’

  Cuckoo turned white beneath the heavy make-up, giving her a strange Geisha-like appearance, while her neck, which was not covered with the foundation, turned a mottled red. She pulled her pallu closer around her shoulder and said, ‘I do not understand.’

  Arjun silently savoured her slow realization of the danger while Fixit said uneasily, ‘Nothing to understand, madam. Our system is sick—the police unfortunately has too many powers. We just have to be careful and protect you.’

  ‘But I thought they only think my husband did it? Do they think I am guilty too?’ asked Cuckoo slowly, in an accusatory tone, looking straight at Arjun.

  Arjun coldly added, ‘You keep forgetting about Babloo.’

  As the tension turned the garish suite toxic, Fixit made himself another drink and nervously said, ‘Yes, yes, that is true. Even the media has forgotten about Babloo. They call it the Ambika murder case.’ Then he giggled nervously, as the implications of what he had said sank in.

  Arjun, impervious to the state of his wife, looked at the lawyer. ‘I am not a
rich man, neither am I made of money. I need to keep working to finance this legal battle and my clients, especially the corporates, will run away if this scandal continues. You need to make sure it stops or the money will dry up. Now tell your greedy friends this. And apply for the bail. But make sure it is done quietly. I do not want screaming headlines, OB vans and breaking news.’

  Even Fixit felt unnerved by what he saw in the eyes of his client and said in a sombre whisper, ‘It will be kept under wraps. You don’t worry.’

  ‘I have heard that a lot from the beginning and yet, here we are,’’ said Arjun dryly as he stood up. Then, without bothering to wait for his wife, he walked out of the suite. Cuckoo scurried out after him.

  In the lift, he told her in a tense whisper, ‘Not a word in front of the driver.’

  Meera, who had just finished dinner with who she thought had to be the most boring man in the universe, was startled to see the Nalwas in the lobby. She had wound up the date by announcing that she had a migraine. As she told herself, it was her ‘Devdas moment’. She had to get drunk to tolerate his whining. After she told him that, he seemed miserable in his own skin—a frosty front engulfed the already icy guy.

  She dawdled near the restaurant, reluctant to bump into them, especially after she saw how over-dressed Mrs Nalwa was. She felt a sudden rush of pity for the woman and felt a queer kind of empathy with her.

  Mr Nalwa had already spotted her and, after his terrible session with Fixit, felt all his self-control spiral out. Was the bitch following them? Hadn’t she soiled his reputation enough? Really, this was too much; it was stalking and harassment. He immediately called Bhagwan up and told him sharply, ‘Your rude reporter is now stalking me. We had a meeting in the Taj Palace and now, she is hounding us in the lobby. This is too much and it’s going to cost you! Have you and your paper no sensitivity and no boundaries after the hell you have put us through?’

  Bhagwan, who was schmoosing with the Italian ambassador, was irate. Without giving away anything, he said ‘Please don’t worry. I will look into it and make sure it is stopped.’